


a house (a home)

by nevereverever



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (brief) - Freeform, Afterlife, But it is not sad, Canon Compliant, Communication, Death, During Canon, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, I cannot stress to you enough that this fic is about death, Julia Burnsides is an Important Death Entity, Kravitz is a Good Friend, Love, M/M, Mentions of Sex, POV Multiple, Post-Canon, The Astral Plane, The Eternal Stockade, The Relic Wars, The Sea of Souls, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23436244
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: Julia Burnsides had a thread in the tapestry of fate that extended long past when she dies in Raven's Roost. She finds herself in the Astral Plane, charged to help the troubled souls that come to her door. And, well, she's always been a hard worker.Julia Burnsides finds a way to help, finds friendship, her true love.
Relationships: Julia Burnsides & Kravitz, Julia Burnsides/Magnus Burnsides, Kravitz/Taako (The Adventure Zone)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	a house (a home)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi friends. This is something that I headcanon'ed so hard I had to write it. If you are at all worried, I promise though this is about death, everything turns out fine and happy and good.

When Julia Burnsides woke up, her first thought was of her husband. She knew that she'd just died, that she hadn’t been able to save anyone, let alone herself, but her first thought was of Magnus. She hopes he lives well, takes his time. 

Dying didn’t hurt like she thought it would. She’d pictured it before, during the revolt, but when it came, she just stopped existing with her body and started existing somewhere else. She looked down at the Sea of Souls beneath her feet and smiled. Like fish. Magnus always loved fish. 

In an instant though, she was swept away by something that was dark and cold. She didn’t feel the cold though, just knew of it. The darkness consumed her vision.

“Julia Burnsides?” The dark asked, its voice quiet and airy as if the wind itself was speaking. She nodded.

“You know what has happened?” She nodded again. She knew the basics of it, anyway. Her heart clenched painfully at the thought of Raven’s Roost, but there was nothing she could do about it now.

“There is a purpose for you here, young one. A purpose woven into the fabrics of fate.” She didn’t know how to respond to that one. Sensing her confusion, the darkness coalesced into a form resembling a woman. 

“Hi,” Julia ventured, taking a step closer to the darkness, but the figure didn’t get any closer.

“There are souls that arrive on this plane, souls that cannot be reached by punishment nor time. You must be their guide,” the figure said, stepping aside. When it did, Julia saw an island, with trees and a little house. The house was made of stone, and that she’d have to fix. 

“So, like a death therapist. An afterlife buddy. A ghost counselor.” She started to make her way to the island and the dark being followed her.

“If you must,” it replied. 

“Okay,” she said, “When do I start?” She turned around to look at the darkness, but it was gone. She sighed and rolled up her sleeves. Figures that she’d have to figure this one out on her own. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, surprised to find the ribbon she kept around her wrist for that still there. She looked down at her hands.

Her wedding ring was gone.

River woke up, and he wasn’t hungry anymore. He’d been hungry for so long that he’d forgotten what it felt like not to be. But it felt much better. There was a note in his hand. Nobody’s ever taught him to read, but he still knew what it said. He looked up from the waters he was drifting in and saw an island with a little house. Even from where he was, he could see the lights on inside. 

He dragged himself through the water, up the banks, and finally to the door of the house. He held the note tightly in one hand, and quietly knocked with the other. A woman opened the door, smiling. She had a pretty smile.

“I woke up,” he sniffled, “with this note that says- it says for me to go to Julia’s house. Are you Julia?” He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. She crouched so she was at eye level with him. 

“Sure am, kiddo. Do you want to come in?” He nodded and she stepped aside so he could walk through the door, which he did. The house was warm and cozy, which wasn’t what he’d been expecting. She led them to her kitchen table. They sat there in silence for a little while. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say, or if he was allowed to say anything. The table was very pretty.

“Do you know why you’re here?” She asked.

“I’m dead,” he said simply. He traced the grain of the wood with his finger. Being dead had been alright so far, but he was still afraid. His eyes started to water and he swiped at them with his sleeve.

“Me too,” Julia replied, “but people don’t usually end up at my house when they die. Did something happen?” His lip started to tremble.

“I hurt people. Are you- are you gonna-” 

“No, no. Definitely not going to hurt you, at all. I’m here to- I just want to talk for a bit.” He looked up at her, his eyes filled with tears. She scrunched her nose and closed her eyes, and two steaming mugs of tea appeared in front of them. He let out a little gasp.

“How’d you do that?” He wrapped his hands around the mug closest to him, and it was warm. When he took a sip, it was perfect, full of cream and sugar.

“I honestly don’t know. I just think about it really hard, and things appear. It’s a much cooler power when I have someone here to share it with,” she said, smiling. He sniffed a laugh.

“Thank you, Miss Julia,” he whispered into his mug.

“No problem. Can you tell me your name?”

“River. River Evensby.” He had hardly even used his last name, but Julia seemed like someone he could tell. She stuck out her hand and he shook it. She didn’t let go of his hand. 

“Hi, River. I’m glad you’re here. Can you tell me how you died? It might help us figure out a little quicker how to get you where you're going.” She smiled again.

“I found a rock. It told me--- I just wanted some food and it told me I could make anything. I didn’t mean to kill all those people. Honest.” He crossed his heart. 

“Okay. I believe you. Let’s talk about it.”

Gundren Rockseeker died for nothing. He spent the end of his life looking for something that he’d never wanted until that man- Sildar? Barry?- came around. It had stoked up all the anger in him and he couldn’t stop it and now he was dead and all of it was for nothing. Where the Gauntlet had been, instead he had a note in his hand. In a nice dwarvish script it read ‘Find Julia’s house.’ 

He walked for a while, glimpsing down at his hand, every time thinking the Gauntlet would reappear. He stumbled onto the island almost by accident. He knocked on the door to the house and no one answered. He knocked again, more insistent this time.

“Coming,” a woman’s voice called from within. She opened the door, her dress covered in wood shavings and her hair tied up in a messy bun.

“Hi,” she said, dusting herself off, “Do you know why you’re here?” He looked back down at the palm of his hand, unmarred by burns or ash or glass.

“The Gauntlet,” he murmured. He unclenched his other fist and the note drifted to the ground. He looked down for it, but it had vanished. He looked back at the woman, then back at his hand.

“-is gone. And not to be insensitive, but you probably shouldn’t have picked it up in the first place, my man.” He looked up at her, so angry. Of course he knew that! They caught eyes and she smiled. “I know you didn’t want to hurt people.”

“I just- I was scared and mad and the Gauntlet-” He showed his hand to her. She looked at it, strong and calloused, but nothing seemed wrong. She put a hand on his shoulder. 

“Seems like we have a lot to talk about. Come on inside.”

Someone knocked on her door, and when she opened it, she immediately realized that this man was different from the others. For one thing, people didn’t generally show up at her place looking put together. Death has a way of doing that. For another, they never carried weapons. That was sort of part of the point. 

This man stood in front of her house in a full suit with a scythe and she didn’t really know what the protocol was. Grim Reaper appears at your door, but you’re already dead. How does one deal with that?

“Hello,” he said, shifting from foot to foot, “I’m looking for Julia Burnsides.” Another different thing. None of her previous guests had known her last name. 

“That’s me. Why are you here?” It was a little different from her usual question, but she was rolling with the punches anyway.

“I have a message for you from your husband.” She took a sharp breath in. The man outside her door wrung his hands. She searched for a moment but couldn’t come up with the right words. She had so much she wanted to know and so much she wanted to tell him.

“Is he dead? Can I see him? Do you want to come in?” The man laughed, and in her life down there she probably would have socked him. 

“He’s not dead, you can't see him, and no. I have a message from Magnus,” he repeated.

“Can I hear it?” She pulled the ribbon out of her hair and let it fall to her shoulders. 

“You ask a lot of questions,” he remarked with a tired smile.

“As far as I can tell, that’s the whole purpose of me. Are you the one that sends my people here? And will you give me my message?” She was starting to get impatient with this 

“You could say I’m the one who sends the transgressors. And I will give you your message-”

“Don’t call them transgressors Mr. Grim Reaper. They’re people. People who fell prey to something that was so much bigger than them. See, this is why you all need me. They’re people. They’re _my_ people.” The man’s mouth went slack, his eyebrows creased.

“You all? I don’t have the energy for this, I’ve had a long day.” Julia smirked.

“I bet my Mags kicked your ass down there.”

“Listen, do you want the message or not?” He was starting to slump over on his scythe and she figured she’d cut him some slack. She nodded, and he let out a sigh.

“Magnus says that he loves you.” She might have just imagined it, but there was a glimmer in his eye for a moment. She pressed a hand to where once she’d had a heart. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, more than a little misty-eyed. He gave her a dismissive hand motion and walked away, cutting a hole in the air with his scythe and walking through it. She went back inside and carved a duck.

There were some people she couldn’t save, people who believed that what they had done was right, was worth the harm it caused to others. Some people did not want to find peace. Keats sat on her couch for months before he decided that his siblings' crimes were his fault, that he wanted to join them in the Stockade. She gave him a big hug before he left, held his face in her hands and told him that he had a good heart. He said he knew.

The reaper known as Kravitz never intended to return to the place they called Julia’s House

The romantic part of him liked the place as an idea. Somewhere that incredibly troubled souls could accept their actions and their fate before joining the Sea. But the romantic part of him was exactly the problem. He let out a big breath and perhaps his pride and knocked on her wooden door.

She opened it and smiled.

“Good to see you again, Mr. Grim Reaper. Do you have another message?” She was wearing an apron covered in flour, and her hands and hair looked dusted in it too. He waved away his scythe and she relaxed a little bit against the doorframe.

“I don’t. I came here- I wanted-” She cut him off.

“You’re here to solicit my services.” She leveled him with a serious look, but there was still a smile on her lips. Kravitz looked at her, more than a little dumbfounded. She seemed to glow with a warm light that didn’t exist in other parts of the astral plane. He nodded. “Why don’t you come in?”

“I really don’t think I should,” he replied, squeezing his hands into tight fists and then letting go.

“Okay then.” She sat down on the threshold, arranging her skirt around her. She looked up at him, inquisitive. He heaved a sigh and sat across from her, one leg crossed over the other. She shook her head and laughed. 

“You’re really something else,” she laughed. She scrunched up her face and around her, the warm glow coalesced into two mugs that appeared in front of them. She picked up one and he took the other. He took a sip of a drink that he hadn’t tasted in a thousand years, a drink native to his hometown. He looked up at her.

“How do you do that?” She laughed again.

“I have truly no idea. Nobody gave me a rulebook on how to do any of this. I just knew that there were people to help, so I started helping,” she took a sip from her mug, “How can I help you today, Mr. Reaper?”

“My name is Kravitz. And I,” he put his face in his hand, “I have a very ill-advised crush on a boy. A man. An elf, I have a crush on an elf.” She started to laugh.

“Not what I was expecting, but go on.” She was grinning into her cup.

“I- Having attachments in the material world is tricky. This person is even trickier. I thought I knew exactly how the world works, how it should work, but he just keeps proving me wrong.” Kravitz felt himself grinning like an idiot but didn’t feel the need to stop. His mind drifted to Taako, to the way they slipped effortlessly into conversation, to his jokes and his power.

“You don't make that sound like such a bad thing,” she said, her voice gentle and melodic. 

“It might be. Everything I do is in service to my Queen. He’s teaching me that there are exceptions to my rules, I don’t know how to deal with that,” she nodded, “You are distressingly easy to talk to.” She shook her head and a few strands of hair fell into her face. She brushed them away and left a smudge of flour on her face.

“I’m just a good listener. I’ll ask you this, Mr. Kravitz Reaper, why are you telling me all of this?”

“Well- you’re the only human I know to ask.” He looked down at his hands, his skin just a concept rather than something real and whole.

“If you’re concerned that your whole belief system is wrong, why not go ask your God? You're talking to a former cleric here, I know how that can feel.” The warm light around her almost felt like it was reaching out to him.

“Because this isn’t- because I’m falling in love. That’s a human thing.” He took another sip from his mug. The almost forgotten smell soothed him and he relaxed, slouching forward. 

“Let me ask you one more thing. Is there anything you need to know that isn’t already inside you?” The air went quiet and still. Kravitz took a deep breath.

“What’s his name?” Julia asked.

“Taako.” Julia laughed, a deep and round thing. Kravitz knew that he’d only known her for a total of a few minutes, but something told him that they were friends. It was almost eerie.

One day, the sea went bright and inky. She watched as the plane around her was devoured, as her island was devoured. She knew that somewhere, Magnus was fighting. 

So she fought too. She fought for all the people who’d showed up at her house trembling and afraid of themselves. She fought for them now that they had finally found peace in the Sea. She fought for the souls in the Stockade, the ones she couldn’t save. 

There was a man sitting on her doorstep. He was wearing a suit, his hair was greying at the temples. He hadn’t knocked, didn’t seem to notice the battle raging around them. She crouched to be at eye level with him, setting aside her weapon.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be here, friend,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be anywhere anymore.” He spoke with the voices of a million people. She nodded. 

“Then maybe there’s someone that you need to see.” He looked at her, uttered something, maybe a name, that she couldn’t hear over the commotion, then blinked out of existence. She grabbed her axe and went back to fighting.

"Kravitz?"

"Yeah?" They were sitting across from each other, their backs pressed against the doorposts, their legs tangled in the middle.

"When Mags dies, you're gonna bring him here, right?" She nudges his knee with hers. He sighed and looked away, toward the sea and its millions of colorful lights below the surface.

"He's living a good life. He's done incredible things. There's no reason for him to come here. He's earned his rest," he said, his voice quiet and disconnected.

"What about me?" She asked, "what have I earned?" He sighed again, more forceful this time.

"Julia-"

"I just want my husband back. Is that too much to ask? I've been saving souls for decades and I haven't earned the right to fuck my hot husband one more time?" Kravitz laughed.

"He's mortal. When he dies, he belongs in the Sea, where he can exist and be at peace."

"He belongs in my bed."

"Julia-”

"I'm mortal too, Kravitz, or I was once. I'm not like you, I don't want to do this forever. All I want is to be happy with Magnus and then, I don't know, maybe I belong in the Sea too." He started to say something again, but she kept going.

"When I first got here, the Queen said that I had a purpose here, written into the fabrics of fate. One day, my strand ends. I want to be with Mags when it does. Is that so much to ask?" He opened his mouth to say something about the nature of souls and the importance of the laws and strictures of Death, but nothing came.

"No, I suppose it isn't," he said, letting his eyes drift shut. "When the time comes, I will do my best." She reached out a hand and he took it, halfway between a handshake and affection.

"I knew there was a reason I've kept you around." He laughed again in earnest. His chest felt light and warm like freshly baked bread from his husband's oven. He still wasn't sure how she did that but it didn’t scare him anymore.

“Not for my company?”

“I have plenty of company. The world makes sure of that.” She looked down the well-worn stone path to her house. 

“The world gets quieter every day, my friend.” He followed her gaze, down the path and to the Sea, and much farther to the Stockade. He used to be proud of it, containing evil, punishing wrongdoing. Now, he was sad he couldn’t have saved more of them.

“If- When I go, will someone still do this job?” She turned back to him, and for the first time in a while, she wasn’t smiling. Kravitz nodded.

“That I will promise you. No matter what, there will always be a Julia’s House.” He squeezed her hand.

Julia’s bed was a sturdy handmade thing. Built from wood and hard work and prayers to a God who had long since stopped answering. She was lying in bed with her head on her husband’s broad shoulder when she felt it, the quiet that her people had described.

“Magnus?” She asked, pressing a hand to his sternum. He felt warm under her palm.

“Yeah, Jules?” He nuzzled his cheek into her hair. 

“I think it’s time to go.” She let her eyes flutter shut, drinking in the sensations. The air of the cottage she’d lived in for what must have been a century. Her husband. Her own heartbeat.

“Okay,” he said, wrapping his arms around her, “How do we do this?”

“I have a feeling that when we’re ready, we just walk in.” She didn’t move to get up. Nothing felt urgent, just like she had come to the end of the thread she’d been following. Somewhere far away, a Goddess smiled.

“I’ll follow your lead.” She leaned up and gently kissed him. 

“I love you so much.”

When Laurana woke up, she was laying on a still ocean full of bright, colorful lights. She was dead, of that she was quite certain, and she had a note in her hand. She looked down at it, and in a messy Common script it said: “Go find Julia’s House.” She looked around her, and over her shoulder, she saw an island and a house with the lights on. 

She knocked on the wooden door which was inlaid with fine gold patterns. There was a large raven perched on the windowsill. 

A man opened the door. He was handsome, with dark skin and kind eyes that crinkled around the edges.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m looking for Julia’s house. You’re not Julia, are you?” The man chuckled and shook his head.

“No, I’m Kravitz. Come on in, my husband is cooking dinner.” She walked into the house which was cozy in a cluttered sort of way, filled with trinkets and colorful furniture. There was an elf standing at the stove, stirring something that smelled divine. Divine wasn’t the best choice of words for a person like her. “Love, we have company,” Kravitz called over his shoulder. 

“Nice to meet you, homeslice. Staying for dinner?” She nodded, rendered speechless. This was not what she thought Hell would be like. Not what her parents taught her that she was going to face. Kravitz turned to her and caught her gaze.

“Do you know why you’re here?” He asked, his voice much quieter and much more gentle than it had been just a moment before. He sat in one of the plush chairs and she followed him. She let out some tension she hadn’t realized she’d been holding onto.

“I’m not exactly sure. I thought this would be more painful.”

“Nothing has to hurt, dear,” he said, a little frown crossing his face, “We have a lot to talk about.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love you all. Leave me a note if you'd like, I treasure them very much.


End file.
